A comprehensive review on natural occurrence, synthesis and biological activities of glycolipids

Glycolipids are ubiquitous and biologically important molecules and are involved in diverse biological functions and exhibit biosurfactant applications due to their surface-active and biodegradability properties. Despite showing a wide range of biological functions, not enough commercial exploitation has been taken place. Possible reasons for this could be the lack of focus or commercially viable processes for isolation/purification, as these glycolipids are found to be complex mixtures in their respective natural sources. Keeping these complexities in view, in this review, we focused on natural occurrences, including plants, marine micro algae, microorganisms, and salient features of various chemical methods, including glycosylation methods for the synthesis of different types of glycolipids. Further, this review significantly summarises the biological evaluation of a diverse class of glycolipids isolated and/or synthesized either by partial or total synthesis.